This book pointed out many design problems that I just met before. Designer could avoid many of them by following the guidelines in this book. I think it would help me a lot in my design work. Thanks to the authors.

The guidelines are not difficult to understand, and you may have the pieces here and there. But this book has a broad coverage. I got this book by luck draw at SNUG. Didn't pay attention at first until I read it. Very well organized, very accurate description of the real feelings of doing a real chip. The methodology it talks about is not limited to "reuse". I suggest the auther change the title for next edition.

I really liked this book and found its rules and guidelines very useful. Many of the guidelines are common sense, but it is still very appropriate to have them codified in a single textbook. Practitioners of full-custom approaches to IC design will complain that this is an "ASIC" book. It does have some rules that folks from that background will find hard to swallow (eg, no latches, no gated clocks). But 70% of the book is still applicable to full custom design and will result in faster re-use of full custom cores. The book gets off to a fairly wooly start but becomes substantial with the RTL Coding Guidelines chapter. From then on, its really solid stuff. This is a good book for the times. With much discussion of design re-use and transferable intelectual property in the chip industry, it has all the hallmarks of becoming a 'bible' book for IC designers of all stripes.

best ever caving book.The only book to capture the atmosphere of caving in the heroic era.

The finest of all classic speleological narratives,Chevalier's book details the wonderfully enterprising exploration of the Dent de Crolles system.Under difficult wartime conditions,he and his crazy crew,including the famous Fernand Petzl the inventions wizard and the obsessed martinet Charles Petit-Didier,overcome all obstacles to claim the scalp of the world's deepest cave.Hair-raising risks are taken with stone age gear,and the tale is told in a beautiful style admirably captured by a pioneer translator.

This unusual true story describes the experiences of some of the pioneers of french speleology, as they explored what was then the deepest cave in the world situated in the mountain of Dent de Crolles, France. During the first half of this century, with a boldness that can only be described as awesome, Robert de Joly describes how he and his friends, dressed in only "woollens" and using cumbersome climbing equipment, pushed this classic french cave system that is still frequented by modern speleologists. Not only did they descend a number of deep pits in succession, but they also used siege tactics with a scaling pole to ascend more than 1000 feet of shafts into the mountain above them! Included are a fine collection of photographic plates of their adventures bearing witness to their achievements. Although the book was origionally written in French, the English translation is well written and remarkably ahead of its time, making it impossible to put down until the last page is finished. Subterranean Climbers makes for entertaining bedside reading even for the non-caver and I would highly recommend to any spleleolgist that this is a must to add to his library. Neil Ringdahl (NeilRing@hotmail.com

Another excellent book in Pratt's four-book series. Olaf and Venus get in their car and head to the beach, checking out the sights along the way. A bird, a porcupine, a plane, the sea are all part of the trip. Pratt's charming and simple artwork bring each item to life--a word on one side of the page is shown again on the facing page with a full-color illustration of Olaf and Venus having fun. A wonderful book that kept my 9-month-old son amused on a plane trip recently. Highly recommended.

My three month old was captivated by the bright colors throughout the story. The single word pages allowed me to make up the story as I read. I could talk for an extended amount of time if she was interested in a particular page. She would coo and ahh at the red car. An excellent book for an infant.

Wonderful illustrations and simple text make this an all-time favorite with babies and preschoolers!

A magical story that confronts the conflicting roles of men and women both physically and metephorically. So beautifully written that it is effortless to read. Delattre is the Gabriel Garcia Marquez of the USA.

This is not a review. I want to inform you that you have not yet posted the information about this title and the author that I sent you at least three weeks ago. Also, Woman on the Cross won ForeWord Magazine's 2001 Book of the Year Award for Literary Fiction. Could you please post this info as well, as soon as possible? Thanks, Christine Holbert

A magical, sensual brew of the mystic and the erotic, heavily peppered with Latin American magic realism. Funny, tragic and thought provoking, with enough plot twists to keep the lovers of pure story turning the pages. A great accomplishment.

This book, as all books by Serre, is very good. He writes with precision, always giving the reading the central ideas. I can only think of Milnor as an author to compare to him. Buy the book if you are interested at all in the material. I am buying all books I can get by Serre.

great reference if you are doing work in algebraic representations of geometric structures at the graduate level. There aren't very many exercises, but as a graduate reference text, exercises don't do a whole lot of good. great explanations, and clear proofs.

This is a wonderful study score to Rossini's wonderful masterpiece. The story of a Barber named Figaro, who is the person that everyone comes to seeking advice.
It's easy to read and the size is standard (9in x 12in). It lies easily on a music stand or desk. It's low price is great for the starving music student. I highly reccommend this for professionals and opera-goers alike.

One of Rossini's best operas, the Barber of Seville, is immortalized here in another one of Dover's fine scores. From the fast-paced overture to the "Figaro" aria (both made famous in old Bugs Bunny cartoons), this opera is nonstop greatness.

As usual, Dover has provided us with a book of the highest quality: they sew their books instead of gluing them so as for them to stay bound and be flexible, and they print legibly. Unfortunately, legible print is becoming disappointingly rare in modern scores, but Dover is the exception.

For a great score of a great opera at a great price, you can't go wrong with Rossini's Barber of Seville.

"Beluga: A Farewell to Whales" is definitely one book I wish the title for was not so apt. In this work Pierre Beland does an amazing job in bringing to life a remarkable animal, the beluga whale, and in particular one population of this species, those that inhabit the immense St. Lawrence estuary in Canada. He also brings to life in a sad and sometimes sickening way the plight facing these animals, cetaceans that even though legally protected in the St. Lawrence since 1979 do not seem to be showing any signs of signifcant population increase.

Beland's book in part reads like the current popular medical and forensic autopsy shows, as the author, a dedicated and highly trained biologist, seeks to determine what is killing the whales of the St. Lawrence. Ready at a moment's notice - even on holidays, the dead of winter, or in the middle of the night - to retrieve whale corpses found ashore or adrift, Beland and his colleagues probe each whale carcass for the secrets of its life and its death. With dedication and skill worthy of a criminal forensic team they uncover the truth of each whale's demise, which are often untimely as young whales or even newborns are almost as common in his lab as much more mature adults.

What Beland finds is chilling. The whales appear to be dying from pollution, a case he boldy and definitely makes in this book. Examintion of the tissues from the deceased whales reveal staggering amounts of industrial and agricultural chemcials, including polychlorobiphenyls or PCBs, DDT, dieldrin, mirex, chloradane, and more. Even though some of these chemicals haven't been used in the region for decades, their use banned, they continue to wash into the St. Lawrence, a vast river system that drains almost the whole of the Great Lakes region. Beland writes that beluga whale milk in the estuary has been found to contain as much as ten parts per million of PCBs and six parts per million of DDT; a lot considering fish containing fives times fewer PCBs are considered unfit for human consumption. Ships carrying waste with more than fifty milligrams of PCBs per kilogram (or fifty parts per million) require a special transit permit; sadly, the average male beluga roaming these waters already has that concentration of PCBs in his blubber by age nine. Without suprise, this massive concentration of pollution within the whale's bodies has lead to a host of ailments. St. Lawrence belugas boast the dubious honor of the highest incidence of cancer in any marine mammal, perhaps even a higher rate than that found in man. Beland discusses not only the cancer but also the other health problems that are affecting this population of whale's very survival.

Beland clearly is in love with the beluga, a beautiful white whale that he writes wears that "peculiar beluga smile," a feature that gives the species "the look of an enigmatic wise man or, rather, of a happy imbelice." Remarkable animals, the author spends a great deal of time discusses the biology and behavior of belugas, particularly in a very concise and fact-filled appendix. Among the most vocal of all whale species, their repertoire is more varied than that of dolphins and extremely complex. Highly social creatures, they may surpass dolphins in their potential for social communication. They also according to Beland clearly surpass dolphins in terms of their echolocation capability; in fact this ability is so sophisticated that the belugas have been held for many years by both the United States and the former Soviet Union for studies to aid in the development of sonar technology. Beland discusses this at some length, including the remarkable story of a beluga that escaped from such a facility in the Ukraine and ended up in of all places the Turkish coast, very far indeed from the species usual haunts.

The book is also valuable for its history of the interaction between the beluga whales and the people of the St. Lawrence. Hunted for centuries - from the days of the earliest European settlers and by native peoples before that - Beland discusses the use of weir fisheries to trap whales and of the odd, bizarre, and cruel war fought against the beluga between 1928 and 1939 which even involved bombing the poor whales from the air! Also discussed is the history of the beluga in captivity, covering everything from the early futile attempts involving the likes of P.T. Barnum to today's more sophisiticated modern oceanairums, which although Beland has some misgivings about them, may play a vital role in trying to save the species.

Finally the book is a good one to get for those interested in the St. Lawrence estuary itself, an impressive body of water and ecosystem in its own right. As much a sea as a river, the St. Lawrence flows downstream only half the time, it main current reversed every six hours by the tide in a never ending war between the light brown river waters flowing from the Great Lakes and the green salt water alive with seaweed and all matter of marine animals. Home to a variety of seabirds, fishes, crustaceans, molluscs, and four species of seals - many of which are more charaterstic of arctic climates and are not found as far south anywhere else in the world - even without belugas the river and its life are remarkable and need protection.

A charming, heartfelt book concerning a species not often written about. The sad toll the animal's own environment takes on it's health, and the dawning inevitability of the whale population's demise is shocking. The novel made me not only want to find out more, but it woke me up and made me want desperately to help.

This is such a book as would have the most hardened reviewer reaching for the overworked superlatives. Impressive in size and sumptuous in production, for what is actually quite a reasonable price in present-day terms, it contrives to set forth much of the aesthetic attraction of astronomy both ancient and modern.

The authors have marshalled a stunning array of historical and modem imagery under the general headings of "The harmony of the world", "Uranometry", "Cosmogenesis", and "Creatures of the sky". Not the least of its virtues is that as the original edition was jointly published by the Bibliothèque Nationale, the authors have been able to obtain readier access to the treasures of that institution than many other researchers find possible.

Many of the illustrations from conventional astronomical rare books are familiar, though the hand-colouring of different copies makes a fascinating comparison, but others are less so - apart from the unique manuscript sources, the authors have made appropriate use of decorative embossed book covers, illustrations from l9th and 2Oth century books, especially early science fiction, early space art and even comic books. It can be a trifle disconcerting to find, for example, a modern map of the cosmic microwave background radiation juxtaposed with a l4th century manuscript, but such comparisons can be quite reasonable as long as they are not taken too literally.
Although the innumerable illustrations are the most prominent feature of the book, the authors' impeccable credentials as high officials of the CNRS and as successful popularizers of astronomy lend the text authority and style. The authors have carefully described the significance of the thought behind the historic images, and the whole book will make a marvellous crib for captions and exhibitions, as well as being ideal fodder for picture researchers.
The whole book is a striking demonstration that the most valuable use of historical imagery is to provide an accessible entry point to the subject; such beautiful images, intelligently explained, can engage the interest and commitment of the mathematically challenged in a way that the Schwarzschild Radius or the Chandrasekhar Limit will never do. A book that anybody with the slightest interest in the subject would be delighted to find .

Celestial Treasury: From The Music Of The Spheres To The Conquest Of Space is an impressive coffee-table book surveying the history of man's exploration of the stars. The informative and engaging text is wonderfully enhanced with 380 full-color illustrations as the reader is treated to a full spectrum history of astronomy from antiquity down to the present day. Along the way such questions are addressed as how philosophers and scientists approach explaining the order that governs celestial motions; how geometers and artists measure and map the skies; when and how the Earth came into being; who inhabits the heaves; and more. Celestial Treasury is especially recommended as a "Memorial Gift" acquisition for both academic and community library astronomy and history of science collections.

I have to disagree with the above editorial. I compared the reproductions with others that I have, and although there are sometimes subtle differences they are not always to the disadvantage of this book. Some pictures are better than others, but the advantage here is that each reproduction is on a page by itself with commentary on an adjoining page-a catalogue layout that I always prefer in that it give the painting room to breathe and because I'm not reading on one page and finding the relevant painting six pages later. The book is obviously done by true lovers of the painter. Chardin is profound and a painter's painter. You can see and feel why he was adored by Cezanne, Soutine, Manet, Proust, and I'm sure many other significant artists. He has rightly been called a virtuoso of stillness. Even in reproduction, pieces of fruit, kitchenware and game animals are alive and quietly glowing from within with a warmth, compassion and a kind of subtle majesty-it's really deep in an indescribable way. In my opinion a very worthwhile purchase.

This book is simply gorgeous. I had been well acquainted with Chardin a number of years ago, and picked up this book on a whim at the store. Rediscovering this master was a true delight. His paintings are deceptively simple: behind the cool colors and the measured scenes lies a captivating energy. This particular volume is very well done. The reproductions are of superior quality and the accompanying essays by the world's most renowned Chardin expert are enjoyable and enlightening. Art books are expensive, but this is one that is well worth the investment.

If you love the "Old Hollywood", you'll love this!!! Great stories and pictures

Le monsieur Charlton Heston is the most dignified,deep,fascinating man in the world.If you read this book you will fully understand his broad acting range,realism,rebeliousness,and genius.He is a true American hero.God bless Mr.Heston.